The Alange & Sohne

April 12, 2005

One of my favorite gifts is a knock-off of a nice watch.

My dad seems to know a good watch guy, in the sea of Bangkok vendors who sell any counterfit consumer product that you can dream of.

My Alange & Sohne

At Christmas, he gave me an Alange & Sohne. I had never heard of the brand, but it looks pretty cool. I searched the web for the real McCoy. I didn't find the exact copy of mine (or I guess I should say the one that mine copied), but this one was fairly close.

The thing that might cause you to choke on your own spit is the price. I can't imagine spending $26K on a watch. Wouldn't it be fun to have so much money that this seemed like a reasonable price for a nice watch?

At any rate, the knock offs sometimes seem to lack the features that one might expect. I went ahead and made a comparison chart, so that when you might be in the market for a watch, you can decide whether you want to grab a replica, or go ahead and spring for the real thing.

What the Knockoff Does	What the Real Thing Does (Presumably)	What a $26,000 Watch Should Do
There's a button on the side. Every morning, I can push it in with a pencil, and the date dial advances.	I imagine that the real thing advances the date automatically.	It should detect the date, based on the magnetic orientation of the sun and moon, and set it automatically. If you happen to cross the intrnational date line, that should be detected and accounted for also.
The date dial can count to 39, and then it resets to 00 instead of 01.	I bet that the date goes to 31 and then resets to 01.	You should have the option of any calander that any culture in the world has ever used. I might try to learn the Mayan calendar, and start using that dating system on documents and emails.
Attaches to your wrist with a strap.	Attaches to your wrist with a strap.	A $26K watch should hover right above your wrist, keeping a couple millimeters of space between the clock and the body.
If you have your arm sort of near your head, and if the room is quiet, you can hear the mechanics of the watch making noise. It sounds like the ring-a-ding-ding of a casino that is very distant.	Who knows.	It should read your mind, figure out what song you would like to hear, connect to the internet, find the mp3, and play it for you softly.